i need a friend

dear cameron,

you're my friend, and this is what I would tell you. you're awesome, you're attentive, a great listener, caring, supportive, imaginative, and curious. and tender too, can't forget that one.

i feel like this feeling come out once in a while, but it gets intense. when it's not like this, i could be doing a bike workout, singing with my guitar, or playing the piano for like the third hour. my roommates and i did a floor cleaning today, and a roommate and i talked a little bit about differences between piano and guitar, namely, how guitars can't play melody and harmony at the same time. i wish conversations could go longer. we could learn a lot more and do cooler stuff. i feel like i've gotten more introspective? living with roommates i can't talk to because well what can i do. i've noticed that i feel pretty bad while playing piano. even though i could be singing and really feeling it. like sad. like when i'm not doing anything, called interoception, when i don't know what to do, the i guess i can play piano because i feel too bad to do homework feeling, that's the way i feel like, and it gets bad when i try to sleep.

i've been doing things, like people i bike with, friends of friends, trying to go outside, and talk to them, not really a heart to heart kind of thing. that's depends on environment too.

i don't really want to think about this, but the thought of getting a new phone keeps popping into my head. i can't tell how much of it is it's nice to upgrade vs i could use the money elsewhere.

tangent but i remember someone said if you can't decide, then just choose any option, because it probably means all of the options are roughly the same, and you don't really lose much from picking one over the other and you don't have the decision fatigue and time spent.

i think i'm pretty obsessed with visa. i see myself a lot in him. and he's written a lot of stuff that have been helpful that give me hope. when i'm on twitter, i end up taking note of every one of his tweets because they are just that good. they resonate with me. i want to practice good reply game, but i don't really know what to say, it's a bit overwhelming to process and then put into words.

yeah i've been struggling with doing homework. i don't know how i'm gonna do school. i just don't feel good enough to do homework. 240 and 241 of Introspect talk about kid visa struggling with not wanting to do homework and adult visa validating kid visa and asking him about his interests and nurturing him. i want that. it would feel really relieving just to tell someone what's going on and cry it out. maybe get a firm hug. holding it in hurts.

it's kind of weird that i don't feel like this all the time. it's more like a shadow at other times. i was writing other posts but they're more than explainers that take some research and thinking. this post is more like talking to a friend. i orginally thought of this as talking to a camera, hence Cameron, but it's awkward saying this stuff to a camera with people listening. same self-conciousness when i'm practicing singing high notes, i don't really want people to hear. i was at a zoom meeting on thursday, and they were talking about acute and long term symptoms of trauma, and my past many months resemble that, and them talking about when to seek professional help. i've done five sessions before but they were unhelpful. i should try again, but i'm not sure. cost is probably worth it.

see, this is probably what i would've told someone, but it seems idk what's a word for small, light, almost comical, not fully representative. like if this was a conversation, something that would be dismissed. i think it's the vibes, getting it out?, not the words. yeah i just feel weird writing this, and saying it. there's an instagram reel of a girl putting her face into her hands with the words of regretting oversharing in a conversation. this kind of feels like that. or when conversations get cut off when it gets like this.

this and the roommate thing reminds me of bids. social bids. emotional bids is the name. where you say something or give an invitation for an interaction, and the other person can choose to respond. similar to visa on reply game. i remember taking notes of a podcast talking about emotional bits. i think it might be How To. The notes were: attention; shared interest, interest; emotional support, enthusiastic engagement; extended conversation; play: play fighting, banter; humor; affection; self disclosure. how did the interview go. i wrote this on 3/3/2021. i remember i was walking down this hill near my house.

visa feels like this mature version of me; i think i would grow into. Introspect emphasizes journaling. stream of consciousness journaling. getting it out, examining later.

i still have a lot of notes, drafted posts, and list of tweets i want to write about.

visa estimates between 30 and 300 people taking action based on Introspect and I expected it to be way higher. pretty surprising that not enough people know about this good stuff.

i find myself thinking a lot of about the neuroscience of learning, how piano changes the piano, and how easy piano is while playing piano. maybe it's an unfair advantage. i find myself being excited to learn a wide variety of things.

my current list is singing, running, skateboarding. bit farther away are writing songs and making youtube videos. i find myself comparing myself to people that are really good at their specific domains, and wish i was good like that.

singing could be a good priority because it expresses feelings and i think i've been waiting too long to practice. i wish there was a guide to starting learning some skill or something. i tried documenting me beginning the piano; i'll try to update that.

skateboard could be good because i think motor skills are cool, and it challenges the brain. it would a good way to make friends, but i feel intimidated because i'm pretty bad and i'm not exactly sure where to start.

i want to how to start learning a skill guides! written by people documenting how they learned. (reminds me of max deutsch on medium). or get a teacher, huh?

austin kleon talked about being inspired and comparing yourself to a dead writer (i think?) and QC said a lot of authors were "inspired by a single book they read and were utterly consumed by it."

i'm obsessed with aaron swartz and visa. i want to study them.

i saw an instagram reel with a brown eye, brown trees, brown coffee, and brown milk way galaxy. made me think about awe and wonder.

i think back to me as a kid. there was this tweet about looking at stars before going to sleep and talking to yourself in the mirror to hype you up. i remember in elementary school working on projects and doing novel activities that expand your worldview and midde school being taught physical sciences. i feel like those were learning experiences that were very unique. i can't exactly remember details, but i was to replicate that learning experience. unrelated: childlike intensity?

some of this stuff is from notes. i still have a lot more. i need to clean these up.

hmm, i should write them all out, compile, and then organize